'The slowest ever'The Golden Generation's sluggishness in booking the Olympics is also due to La Defense'low depth'?
Jul 31, 2024
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Foreign media, including the British daily `Guardian" and the US media `Wall Street Journal, mentioned the `low water depth' of the La Defense swimming pool as the reason why 12 of the 37 swimming events in Paris in 2024 were completed by the 29th local time and no new Olympic record was made.
Nicolas Martinengi of Italy, who won the gold medal in the men's 100m breaststroke on the 29th, pointed out that both he and his competitors set a particularly unimpressive record because of the depth of the pool.
Kim Woo-min, who won the first medal (bronze medal) in 12 years for Korean swimming in the 400m freestyle event, also pointed to 'low depth' as one of the reasons why the record did not come out well.
Kim Woo-min won his first Olympic medal with a time of 3:42.50, which is equivalent to his 400-meter freestyle best, but Hwang Sun-woo clocked 1:45.99 in the main event, the 200m freestyle, well short of his own record of 1:44.40, and was "shocked out" of the semifinal. The men's relay team, which maintained the 7 minute 1 second range, also failed to win a medal by finishing sixth with a time of 7:07:26, more than five seconds short of the best record in the 800-meter event.
Superstars who challenged not only South Korea but also the Olympic gold medal and even a new world record are tilting their heads at the lower-than-expected record. Adam Peaty of the U.K., who holds the world record with 56.88 seconds in the men's 100m breaststroke, won the silver medal at the event with a time of 59.05 seconds. "The overall record of management events is poor," he said after the competition.
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The Olympic swimming pool is about 80 centimeters below the water depth of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic swimming pool held in 2021. The swimming pool recommended by the World Swimming Federation is 3 meters deep. The environment of the pool may be unfamiliar to athletes who have competed in the Tokyo Olympics or recent world championships.
It cannot be concluded that the depth of the pool directly affects the performance of swimming stars. However, it is common knowledge that swimming in a shallow pool is slower than swimming in a deep pool. When a Youngja moves in the water, it causes waves that propagate in the water. The waves reflect back to the bottom of the pool and return to the surface of the water, and the Youngja is disturbed by the turbulence. The lower the water, the more turbulence, or resistance, is faced. On the other hand, it is said that there is a path in the water in a swimming pool with a deep depth. For this reason, the minimum depth of the Olympic swimming pool was set at 2 m.
The La Defense pool, which is known to have been temporarily built by renovating the rugby stadium, does not have to be 'setting' deep in depth because it does not hold aquatic events separately. The minimum standard for swimming pools that open aquatic sports is 3 meters deep.
Sixteen years ago, the 2008 Beijing Olympics saw an unusually high number of new records. 'Swimming Monster' Michael Phelps broke five world records, including the 400m individual medley. At that time, the depth of the Beijing National Aquatic Center, where the swimming event was held, was 3 meters. Six new world records were also poured out at the Tokyo Olympics.
yoonjinman@sportschosun.com
